


A woman scorned

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Idiots in Love, Manipulative Relationship, Military Backstory, Military Training, Past Relationship(s), True Mates, Twilight Renaissance, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Jasper doesn't think of Maria much, not any more, but sometimes he can't help but wonder what happened to her after he left her to follow Peter and Charlotte to the clan up north all those years ago.He never expected her to arrive at his home and demand his unrelenting loyalty again. thankfully, he doesn't need her any more, and he's not afraid to let her know it.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Jasper Hale & Maria
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65
Collections: Twilight





	A woman scorned

**Author's Note:**

> So, you guys here's the thing. My only experience with Twilight is reading the first two books. And I really have no interest in Twilight AT ALL, but as you know, I'm a sucker for siblings, and I love the Cullen family?? Like, let's ignore the moody Edward and how shitty some of it is (what's up with this Mormon thing I hear people talk about???) but I think they're a really cute family with genuine dynamic. I decided to put this here because I hear that there's a new Twilight renaissance coming up and I thought maybe it would be better to put it on my main. Anyway, please don't judge me, and I hope you enjoy it.

He was standing at the top of the cliff, glittering in the sunlight.

Rosalie had spotted him and called Edward and Alice to the window. Emmett volunteered to meet him, albeit jokingly, and toss him down the cliff. But joking or not, Alice knew that would only end in disaster. She honestly just wanted to leave him be and let him come back inside when he felt ready too, but under Edward’s suggestion, she marched forward and exited the house and into the sunlight.

His hands were in his pockets, and his face was tilted up towards the sun. “Jasper,” she said, but she didn’t need to. He had heard her coming.

“Hey there, darlin’,” he said, and Alice could hear the rare smile in his voice. “Come to give me some company?”

Alice didn’t answer, just joined him at the edge of the cliff. There were a million things she wanted to say, but his reaction to all of them would be silence, and a frown, and she didn’t want that smile she loved so much to go away just yet, so she just let him stand in silence for a little bit until he reached an arm out and snaked it around her shoulders. “What are you doing out here?” she asked eventually. She had looked, and out of all the possible questions, she could have asked, that one was the safest.

“Sometimes, it’s nice to feel the sun,” he said nonchalantly. “I thought it was the perfect opportunity. Good weather. A rare occurrence at Forks. This shithole.”

“Well,” Alice laughed against his skin, “Another strange occurrence is all the Cullen kids not being at school, so we better have a good excuse as to why we’re not there by tomorrow.”

Jasper didn’t answer, and Alice just hugged his arm closer to her side and leant her body weight against him. While to humans, their skin was hard as stone and just as cold, to Alice, Jasper’s skin had always been soft and gentle, and sometimes she would lose herself wrapped in the comforting safety of his arms. He’d been troubled as of late, that she was sure of, and she wished there was some way she could help him other than watching the future for any sign of change, and wished she could take away his suffering like he could take away other’s panic. But she knew that there were a right way and a wrong way of doing things, and that sometimes Jasper could be as fragile as stained glass, and that sometimes she needed to tread carefully for fear of shattering him.

She worried sometimes what dark thoughts went through his mind when he was alone. He could feel and influence the emotions of others, so he tended to stick around people who emitted positive energy or smiled a lot, but sometimes, when he was alone, she worried. When he was in the house, Edward could read his mind in the span of a second and decided whether he needed to pull his brother out of the darkness or not. Sometimes, Alice could see something that might happen and could interfere before it did. Jasper wasn’t always an easy man to read, but they knew him for centuries, and they knew when a poisonous thought crossed his mind. And Alice worried every single time.

But Alice knew when to be gentle, and she knew when to be pushy, and sometimes she needed to find that balance in between. “Rough night?” she tired.

Sighing through his nose, Jasper craned his neck down to place a feather-light kiss on her head, barely ruffling her hair in the process, but she felt her dead heart flutter at it anyway. “How could you tell?” he murmured into her scalp and the vibration of his tenor sent shivers down her spine. After so many years, she still loved him like the day they first met. “I didn’t disturb you, did I?”

“No,” Alice replied. “I didn’t even really know anything was wrong. I’d come to bed late. Edward told me this morning that you’d had a vision, and he was up all night watching it. He said he didn’t want to pry, but that he couldn’t look away.”

“I wouldn’t call it a vision,” Jasper conceded, resting his chin on her head. “More like a waking nightmare. I just stared at the ceiling all night, and all I could think about was... Maria.”

Despite her best efforts, Alice tried not to frown and turned around in the circle of his arms to face him. “Maria? Why were you thinking about Maria?”

“I don’t know,” Jasper looked over the top of her head at the landscape beyond and below them. “I just wonder what’s become of her since last we saw her. What she’s doing. Where she is. If she’s still alive. If she’s done what she did to me to anyone else. She was such a large and important part of my life for so long, that sometimes I can’t help but think... well. That doesn’t matter.”

Alice wished that it didn’t matter. Jasper was a kind and gentle soul, and he hated the vicious man that Maria had brought out of him and how she had manipulated him to do her bidding with the fake promise of her affection, and she knew how much that had ruined Jasper, and how the duties she had given him depressed him to no end. She wished that Maria didn’t matter, but realistically, she knew better than that. “What were you thinking of?”

That question was deadly, she knew it, and she should have looked before she’d asked it, but Jasper looked down and met her gaze and said. “You know what I was thinking of.”

And she did. She really did. “Alright,” she said as he put her hands against his chest, “Do you want to come back inside, or do you want to stay out here a little longer? I don’t see the weather getting any worse. You could go hunting, or entertain Emmett. I just... someone might see you.”

Jasper thought in silence for a moment, and Alice would have held her breath if she still needed to breathe, and eventually, he nodded. “I’ll come in with you,” he said and Alice smiled. “I haven’t spoken to Emmett at all today. He’s probably bored out of his brains.”

Laughing, Alice led Jasper back down the cliff by the hand, and thankfully, he followed her without question.

* * *

They were sitting about when it happened.

Jasper and Emmett were lounging together on the couch, both watching a cut-scene from the video game they were playing, while Rosalie painted her nails at the kitchen counter, Carlisle and Esme were reading together on the little nook near the window and Alice was doing English homework while loud music bleared through her headphones and Edward stared into space, probably daydreaming about Bella.

There was a sharp knock on the wood of the door which seemed to shake the whole front of the house with its urgency. Emmett and Jasper paused their game. Carlisle and Esme marked their pages with pieces of paper and bookmarks. Alice ripped the earphones off her head and put her pen down on the coffee table. Rosalie put the brush back into the bottle before deep red nail polish could drip onto the pristine white countertop. Edward looked towards the door, unblinking. “Are we expecting someone?” He asked, knowing full well that they weren’t.

If it was Bella, she wouldn’t have knocked and would have just walked straight in like she owned the place. Jacob Black would knock, but wouldn’t dare visit the Cullen’s household alone, and not without reason. Nobody else knew where they lived.

The scent was strange and unknown, but familiar. It didn’t smell like wet dog, so not a werewolf, and not enticingly sweet, so not a human. A fellow vampire, then.

Exchanging a glance with Edward and Alice, neither of which seemed alarmed at all, just confused, Jasper stood from the couch and made his way to the door. The knock sounded again, louder and longer this time. “Well, I suppose we best answer it, huh?”

The realization dawned on Alice and Edward at the same time, as both their abilities came into effect. “Jasper,” Edward tried to warn. “Don’t open the-”

But it was too late, as Jasper had already swung the door open and plastered a practised polite smile on his face. He wasn’t expecting the woman who stood on the threshold of their home, and if he were still human, he probably would have passed out from the shock.

In an olden emerald coloured gown with black lace trim, the corset laced tightly, the wide-brimmed hat perched on an angle on her head, her dark hair cascading in curls down her shoulder and wearing a set of snakeskin cowboy boots, stood Maria. “Hello there, my dear. Long-time no see.” She purred, and it felt like a bolt of electricity down Jasper’s spine, and just as painful.

Edward was by his side before anyone could blink, trying to pull him away from the open door, but Maria had already put a delicate hand on Jasper’s arm and Edward didn’t pull him far. “Jasper,” he hissed, “Come inside.”

"'Come inside, Jasper,’” Maria mocked. “’Don’t open the door, Jasper.’ It seems to me that your friends don’t want you to talk to me, darling.”

Other than shrugging off Edward’s hand on his shoulder, Jasper didn’t move. “What are you doing here, Maria? What do you want?”

“To talk with you, of course,” she battered her eyelashes at him, and Jasper felt like he was drowning. He tried not to think about too many damning things, because no doubt Edward was reading through both his and Maria’s minds, and he didn’t want to make the situation look any worse than it already was. “You think I’d come all the way out here for just anything? You’re a hard man to find, Jasper Whitlock, when you want to be. But you know you can never hide from me.”

Edward was tugging at him, but Jasper turned to him. “Go back inside,” he said gently, and Edward stiffened. He couldn’t see Alice, but he was afraid of the look that might be on her face. “I’ll deal with this.”

“Oh, what a good southern gentleman,” Maria laughed, and it sounded sickly sweet, and just as enticing as humans blood. Jasper hated it.

Soon, Edward’s thin frame was replaced by Emmett’s bulk, and ultimately Jasper resigned, because Emmett would be a lot harder to convince to leave than Edward was. But regardless, his weight against his back felt comforting. “What do you want?” he asked again.

Maria looked between Jasper’s face and Emmett, who was blocking the entrance into the house with his body. “Are you going to call your attack dog off?” she asked sarcastically, “Or are they afraid to leave you alone with me?”

Instead of answering, Jasper took a step towards her, and Emmett made a sound of protest deep in his throat. Inside, he could hear the rest of the Cullen’s conversing in low, frantic voices. “What do you _want_?” he asked her a third time, and she knew that he wouldn’t ask again.

Her mood seemed to shift, and she turned from her flirty persona to a businesswoman in an instant. She delicately folded her hands together. “I’m starting a new coven, Jasper,” she said simply and Jasper felt like he was going to be sick. “And I would like you to be a part of it.”

“Why you _bitch_ -” Emmett began, but was caught off by Jasper closing the door in his face. There was loud protesting from behind it, but Jasper sent a wave of calm through the wood directed at his brother, and suddenly the profanities stopped and Emmett walked away.

Jasper turned back to Maria. “No, thank you.”

Her eyebrow rose slightly, and Jasper could see it, and he knew she wasn’t amused. “I wasn’t asking.”

“I know,” He said. “The answer is still no. I apologise that you came all this way for nothing, but I won’t be joining another one of your covens.”

“That’s a surprise,” Maria crossed her arms. “That wasn’t your response the first time.”

“Because you turned me into a newborn and made me your second in command,” Jasper replied. “I was starving, and you needed someone to keep the underlings in line.”

Maria smiled. “’Underlings’. Oh, you always were my favourite, Jasper Whitlock.”

Something in Jasper tightened- he wanted to turn around and follow his brother back into the house, but for some painful reason, he couldn’t stand to leave her alone on the doorstep. “Leave, Maria. You have my answer. Now go.”

“Oh, but Jasper,” she pouted. “How could I do it without you? How could you expect me to survive all alone out there in the wild? It’s a cruel world out there for a woman.”

“You’ll manage,” he said, finally willing himself to turn his back on her, but she reached out and yanked him backwards. Of guard, he stumbled down the steps until they were on the garden, and she was so close to his face that their noses were almost touching. She snarled in his face, and he caught a glint of fangs. “Ah, here’s the Maria I remember.”

“Think about what you’re doing, darlin’,” she warned, and her grip on his arm almost became painfully tight. “You need me. Without me, you’re nothing. Nothing but dead weight and fake hope.”

“Maria...” Jasper tried to protest, but Maria wasn’t having it.

“You don’t belong here, Jasper,” she hissed. “You know it to be true. You know it like you know your own face in the mirror. You think the Cullen’s have helped you but all they’ve done it make you weak. You used to be a fighter, Jasper, a warrior- you used to dispose of newborns like they were nothing more than a second thought, and now you feed off- what? Animal blood? You can’t even bring yourself to feed off _humans_? They’ve made you weak, Jasper, and disobedient.”

With one hand, Jasper pushed her away from him, just far enough that he could no longer feel her heated breath on his face. “I was a soldier,” he corrected lightly. “Your soldier. I don’t ever want to be that again. I don’t like it made me, what I became, and I swore that I would never let that happen again.”

Maria scoffed. “Don’t be naïveté. You know that you only survived because I let you. You know that they don’t want you here. You know that they find your lack of control shameful. You know it to be true. Why do you stay with them? Why don’t you come back with me, where you will be loved? No longer the weakest link. In my new army, you will be hailed as a _messiah_.”

Jasper took a step back. “I don’t want to be hailed as a messiah, and I don’t want to join your coven.”

“You’re making a grave mistake,” she said, shaking her head. Jasper remembered how that look on her face would make him ache with sorrow, and how now it only made him brace himself. “There was a time when you used to follow my orders.”

“I would follow you to the ends of the earth,” Jasper agreed quietly. “But I’m not a fool. Not anymore. I know better than that. Now, I would like you to leave.”

“You’re not happy here,” she insisted. “They’re using you. They don’t really love you.”

“Until those words come from their mouths,” Jasper said evenly. “I’m not going to take your word for it.”

Slowly, Maria started stepping backwards, but she didn’t go far. “When you lose control and kill someone they love, and they kick you out onto the streets like an unwanted dog at Christmas, don’t come crawling back to me. You know it’ll happen. You’ve never been very good at... restraining yourself.”

Maybe that was true, and Jasper hated how much she knew it, but he wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction. All he could do was shake his head. “I don’t want to be that person ever again, Maria. I wish you a very long and happy life, but please, never come near me or my family ever again.”

From inside, Rosalie peered through the window to where Jasper and Maria were having a discussion on the lawn, Jasper cool and collected while Maria was seething in white-hot rage. “Why doesn’t he just tell her to go already?” Emmett asked, still put out after Jasper forcibly calmed his anger and made him go back inside and was now leaning against the back of the couch with his meaty arms crossed.

Edward was sitting on the couch with Alice, who was very still, but looked like she wanted to cry at the same time. “He doesn’t trust her,” Edward said. “He’s worried that she’s going to use something against him, or hurt one of us to get what she wants. He doesn’t want to put us in any more danger.”

Esme turned to Alice, whose face was still as stone. “Does he? Go with her?”

They waited as Alice looked. “No,” she said finally. “No, he doesn’t. She leaves, but he’s... he’s not the same. He’s distant. Saddened. But he stays with us, and she doesn’t come back. At least... not yet.”

Emmett couldn’t help but snort. “Jasper would never leave with her. He would never choose _her_ over _us_.”

“I think we all need to just calm down a little,” Carlisle said, holding his hands up. “We know that Jasper wants nothing to do with her, and we know that he isn’t going to leave with her. We all know how much he hated what he did under her employ, so there’s no reason to worry. He won’t go.”

Alice and Edward shared a fleeting glance. “He’s been thinking about her a lot recently,” Edward eventually admitted, reluctantly. “I’ve seen it. It always upsets him, but... he’s still been thinking of her.”

“He regrets what she made him do,” Alice continued. “But I always knew. I never minded.”

Finally, Rosalie lost her patience. “What is he doing? Can't someone just go out there and bring him back inside?”

“What for?” Carlisle said. “If we go out there angry with her, he’ll just make us forget why we’re angry. If we go out impatient, he’ll make us wait.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s doing any of that,” Rosalie said, peeking through the window again. “She looks very angry with him, and he isn’t doing a thing about it.” 

“Jasper controlling her emotions might be the only thing stopping her from attacking him, or one of us, or grabbing him and running away without a thought,” Carlisle replied. “He may not be calming her down, but he’s certainly lessening her anger.”

Emmett spoke up. “But he calmed me down and made me go back inside when she said she wanted him to join her again.”

“He didn’t want to provoke her,” Edward said. “He didn’t want to make this situation any worse than it is. I would have sent you inside, too.”

“Why does she know so much about him? About us?” Esme asked. “She hasn’t been anywhere near him in years, and there isn’t any real reason why she would know how much harder it is for him to be around humans than it is for the rest of us. She’s using information against him that she shouldn’t have.”

Carlisle moved over so he could put an arm around his wife and pull her closer. “She made him what he is,” he told her. “He’s the Jasper we know and love because of the things Maria put him though. She’s the one who made life difficult for him. And all this nonsense about us not loving him and about him being weaker... it’s just that. Nonsense. And I hope that Jasper knows that.”

“He loved her, once,” Alice said quietly, her voice dreamlike as she watched the little part of Jasper she could see through the window and everyone turned to stare at her. “He would have died for her if she’d asked him to. But she loved... someone else. She loved him too, but she loved what he could do for her, she never loved him like she loved the mate she lost. She used him, and he thought that meant she loved him. He killed newborns, put himself through hell just because she batted her eyelashes at him. But he’s always had feelings for her, and even when he left her, it was mostly because he betrayed her by letting a newborn live and he feared for his life than because he’d had enough of her pretending to love him. It had nothing to do with a change of heart. It had to do with her fearing him.”

“Are you jealous?” Emmett asked, maybe insensitively, but he didn’t care. “That she’s come back, and that he’s outside talking with her?”

Alice shook her head. “Why? He loves me. I am his mate. I’m not worried about him leaving me, because I don’t doubt his love. The only reason I’m not out there right now with him is that I’m afraid of what I’d to do her when we were finally face-to-face. Jasper may have forgiven her for everything she put him through, but I never have, and I never will. He’ll come back inside, and we’ll go upstairs, and I’ll hold him until the memory of Maria is well and truly gone. But I don’t trust her. She’s dangerous. And a liar. But... he's my good southern gentleman, and he'll at least hear what she has to say, even if it's complete and utter horseshit. He's nicer than I am.”

“She certainly knows how to push his buttons,” Rosalie said. “If he still had blood pumping through his veins, I’m sure he’d be as red as my lipstick by now. Look how close she is to him!”

Edward was making a face. “Believe me, it’s not pretty. I have never wished to not be able to see thoughts more in my life.” He darted a quick look to Alice. “Not like that. It’s just... I’m seeing memories of them together, and he’s remembering what happened the last time they were that close. He’d forgotten how attractive she was. And the kind of effect she had on him. Alice, I’m...”

“I’m not worried,” Alice said simply. “I trust him. He’s my mate. He’s been faithful for many decades, and there’s no reason for me to doubt him. I think that if the person who turned me suddenly arrived at my doorstep and demanded something from me, I’d have the same response.”

“I don’t like her,” Emmett muttered. “I just want her to leave so Jazz can come back inside.”

Suddenly, there was hissing from outside, and everyone except for Alice jumped and darted for the nearest window. Maria’s shoulders were raised; her eyes furious, her mouth contorted as she hissed at Jasper in rage and Jasper... had no reaction. He stood there, calmly, until Maria turned on her heel, her skirts twirling about her legs, and stormed off into the distance.

Slowly, Jasper turned from the porch and walked back inside and everyone moved away from the windows before he could catch them staring. They didn’t ask him questions and he didn’t willingly offer up any information, so they all just stood there in silence, waiting for someone to make the first move.

Alice stood delicately from the couch and held her hand out to Jasper. After a moment of looking at it blankly, Jasper took it in his own, her tiny hand dwarfed in his much larger one, and she whisked them both upstairs without a word. The rest of the Cullen’s were left there, silently wondering what was going to happen next.

It was Edward who sighed. “It’s going to be a long few days.”


End file.
